See the "Fred Stern & Company, Inc." case for this question. Observers of the accounting profession suggest that many courts attempt to "socialize" investment losses by extending auditors' liability to third-party financial statement users. Discuss the benefits and costs of such a policy to public accounting firms, audit clients, and third-party financial statement users, such as investors and creditors. In your view, should the courts have the authority to socialize investment losses? If not, who should determine how investment losses are distributed in our society?

Guardian inc. is trying to develop an asset-financing plan. the firm has $450,000 in temporary current assets and $350,000 in permanent current assets. guardian also has $550,000 in fixed assets. assume a tax rate of 40 percent. a. construct two alternative financing plans for guardian. one of the plans should be conservative, with 70 percent of assets financed by long-term sources, and the other should be aggressive, with only 56.25 percent of assets financed by long-term sources. the current interest rate is 12 percent on long-term funds and 7 percent on short-term financing. compute the annual interest payments under each plan.

Cash flows during the first year of operations for the harman-kardon consulting company were as follows: cash collected from customers, $385,000; cash paid for rent, $49,000; cash paid to employees for services rendered during the year, $129,000; cash paid for utilities, $59,000. in addition, you determine that customers owed the company $69,000 at the end of the year and no bad debts were anticipated. also, the company owed the gas and electric company $2,900 at year-end, and the rent payment was for a two-year period.

Schonhardt corporation's relevant range of activity is 2,500 units to 5,500 units. when it produces and sells 4,000 units, its average costs per unit are as follows: averagecost per unitdirect materials $ 7.60direct labor $ 2.90variable manufacturing overhead $ 1.65fixed manufacturing overhead $ 2.90fixed selling expense $ 0.95fixed administrative expense $ 0.65sales commissions $ 0.75variable administrative expense $ 0.65if 4,500 units are produced, the total amount of fixed manufacturing cost incurred is closest to: multiple choicea $16,800b $11,400c $11,600d $15,400